Plus etrange que la fiction (Stranger Than Fiction)
by QuiteRightPond
Summary: 11/Amy semi-AU in which Amy works in a book store and finds a peculiar book.
1. Chapter 1

Hey guys. I know that this isn't my Pondlock and that you're probably waiting impatiently for that. Don't worry, I'm getting there. I recently lost the chapter I was working on and with school and junk. Oh well, it's my summer holidays now so let's party. Anyway, this is 11/Amy because they will always hold a special place in my shipper heart. Remember rate, review, subscribe. I will be doing this thing with this fic that every reviewer (no matter what you say) get a special sneak peek at the next chapter. Enjoy!

***Disclaimer* None, I repeat, ****_none, _****of these characters belong to me. It's just a little fun to get the stories out of my head. These characters belong to their rightful owners and whatnot. As I said, it's all fun. Enjoy!**

* * *

_"Love, as we have already discussed, is a powerful, wonderful, ridiculous thing, capable of moving mountains. And spools of thread." _  
_― Tale of Despereaux_

**1**

"What's this book about?" Amy asked, picking up an old book.

She had just started working at a book store. The man who owned it had offered her a job, considering that she basically lived in it anyway. It was her first day and he was showing her the rest of the store. They were in a section which was dusty and the books looked like they would break if you breathed on it. Except for the one she picked up. It was special.

"That," the old man said. "Is a very interesting book."

He walked over to her and placed his hand on the cover.

"Read it, Amelia. I'm sure you'll find it quite to your liking."

Amy just looked at him. She looked back at the book. It looked heavy but it weighed almost nothing. She nodded slowly. The book felt… _right_, for lack of a better word. As if it belonged in her hands. It was hers.

That night, when she got home, she chucked her bag on the floor. It landed with a large thump. She checked her phone, she had five messages from Rory and two from Melody. Apparently Mels had gotten into trouble again, something about a boy trying to hit on her and then ending up in hospital. Amy was too tired to deal with it. She quickly shot a message to Rory and Mels and tossed her phone onto her bedside table.

She buried her head in her pillow, groaning when she remembered that she had homework that needed to be completed. She got up and grabbed her bag. She sat on her bed and opened it. That was when she remembered the book. It sat in her bag comfortably. She looked at it for a moment and then pulled it out.

Amy put her bag down on the floor and opened the book.

_Hello, my friend. You're about to read a story that will change your life like all good stories should. This is the story of a lonely god and the person who changed him. This is the story of love and loss. I should warn you though; this is not a story for the light-hearted. But let's begin shall we?_

_Amelia Pond knelt by her bed, her hands resting on her chin. Her red hair messy and her eyes shut and a look of concentration on her childish face._

_"Dear Santa," she said with a strong Scottish accent._

Amy pushed the book away. What the hell was going on? Why did this character have the same name as her? What the hell?

She looked at the book as if it were suddenly dangerous. She should stop reading, take it back and never think about it again. But surely Amelia Pond could be a common name. It wasn't necessarily her. Either way, her curiousity got the better of her.

Amy stood up and closed her door, looking it. She didn't want to be disturbed. She laid on her stomach on her bed and grabbed the book, opening it again to the page she was on.

_"Thank you for the dolls and the pencils. And the fish." She added as an afterthought. Her eyebrows knitted together and she frowned. "It's Easter now, so I… I hope that I didn't wake you, but, honest, itis an emergency, honest." She swallowed past the dryness in her throat. "There's a crack, in my wall." She turned and looked at her wall. A rather ominous crack split through the light blue plaster. "Aunt Sharon says that it's an ordinary crack, but, I know it's not because at night there's voices… So please, please could you send someone to fix it? Or a policeman, or…"_

"Amy! It's time for dinner! Come on." Amy almost jumped into the air at the sound of her mother's voice.

She hid the book under her bed, she wasn't sure why, and went down for dinner.

"Hang on," Mels said, stuffing a rather large strawberry into her mouth. "What you're saying is that you're a character in a book?" She looked at Amy skeptically.

"No," Amy shook her head, picking at the sandwich that her mother had packed. "I'm saying that this character has my name, my accent, my looks and my family. Rory's in there too."

"What?" Rory's head snapped up from his crisps.

"Yeah, you're a nurse and I'm a… Kissogram?"

That made Mels laugh. Amy grabbed one of Rory's crisps, much to his protest, and chucked it at her best friend.

"Shut up!" She said, although her lips were smiling.

What did it matter anyway? It was just a story.

_"And the final score is: no TARDIS, no screwdriver, two minutes to spare, who da man?" The Doctor outstretched his arms._

_Prisoner Zero cocked its head to the said, you could almost see the sarcasm in its look. Amy's lips thinned, her expression questioning the Doctor's mental health. The Doctor looked around at Amy and then back at Prisoner Zero._

_"Oh… It's… I'm never saying that again. Fine" He mumbled a little sourly._

Amy chuckled and turned the page. She quite liked this Doctor.

_"Then I shall take a new form." Prisoner Zero said, confidence returning back to it._

_"Oh, stop it." The Doctor groaned. "You know you can't. It takes months to form that kind of psychic link."_

_"And I've had years…"_

_The atmosphere in the room changed. Years, it said. Amy wondered what it meant but she didn't have a lot of time. She fell to the floor, blacking out, as she watched a strange glow surround Prisoner Zero._

_The Doctor turned around as he heard Amy's body land. He ran to her._

_"No!" He cried, kneeling beside her. "Amy!"_

_Outside the giant alien ship searched the hospital, but found nothing._

_The Doctor held Amy's face in his hands._

_"You've got to hold on." He said. "Amy! Don't sleep! You've got to stay awake, please!"_

_Rory hit the Doctor's back._

_"Doctor," he said, pointing at Prisoner Zero._

Amy walked into the book store. The small bell clanging as the door opened and closed.

"Ah, Amelia," the old man said. "How are you enjoying the book?"

Amy walked into the back and put her bag down. The book was at home, under her bed. She hadn't told her mum about the book, or its main character being eerily similar to her.

"It's… Interesting." She said, going to work and stacking the books away.

The old man said nothing. He just smiled knowingly and went about his business.


	2. Chapter 2

Hey guys. Sorry this took so long! I've been busy and then sick and then busy again. Summer holidays, ugh. Anyway, here you go! Remember rate, review, subscribe. I will be doing this thing with this fic that every reviewer (no matter what you say) get a special sneak peek at the next chapter. Enjoy!

***Disclaimer* None, I repeat, ****_none, _****of these characters belong to me. It's just a little fun to get the stories out of my head. These characters belong to their rightful owners and whatnot. As I said, it's all fun. Enjoy!**

* * *

_"'Once upon a time,'" he said out loud to the darkness. He said these words because they were the best, the most powerful words that he knew and just the saying of them comforted him." _

_― The Tale of Despereaux_

**2**

"Amy?" Rory said as he pushed open her door. "I came to give you your homework."

Rory sat down on the bed. Amy looked at him and smiled. She cared for Rory, deeply, but she knew that nothing could ever happen between them.

"Thanks," she said, her voice croaky. "Just put it on my desk, I'll do it later."

"No problem."

He did as she said and then left. Amy was glad. Mels would have made a big deal and she wanted to keep on reading. She took out the book from underneath her blankets and rested it on her lap.

_The Daleks were fearsome creatures. Well, at least in appearance. They were too nice to be the things that the Doctor was describing. Amy looked at it. It didn't look like it wanted to wipe out the human race, but of course she could be wrong. After all she had just saved a _whale_ in _outer space_._

_"I do not understand, I am your soldier."_

_Amy wouldn't deny that the Daleks sounded scary. But right now the Doctor was scaring her a lot more._

_"Oh yeah! Okay, okay." The Doctor said, pointing at the Dalek._

_Amy watched in horror as the Doctor turned around and grabbed a massive tool._

_"Okay, soldier, defend yourself." He said as he lifted the tool over his shoulder._

"No!" Amy cried out. "Doctor, don't!"

"Amy?" Her mother came into her room. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Amy barely had time to hide the book. "Fine." She repeated.

Her mother looked at her, unsure of whether she should believe her daughter or not.

"Okay," she said and left. "Dinner's almost ready."

…

"Did you hear about what happened on the weekend?" Melody said as she absently picked at a green apple.

The green wasn't perfect, Amy noticed. It was flecked with bits of brown. If Amy had been focussing on something else, she would have seen Rory turn bright red and shooting a look at Melody.

"No," Amy said, clearly not interested. She sighed and rested her chin on her hand.

"Rory got a girlfriend."

The table shook as Rory tried to kick Melody but obviously missed. Amy's head shot up.

"But we were-" She stopped herself before she could say anything else. No matter how much the character Amy was like herself, it was just a book and the characters were just characters. "That's great, Rory. Who is she?" Amy smiled.

"It's Beth," Melody butted in. Rory shot her another look.

"Oh," Amy tried to keep the smile off her face. "Beth, she's…" She tried to find the right word. "Lovely."

"Shut up, Amy. She's nice, okay? And for your information, she's losing weight."

With that Rory grabbed his bag and his apple from Melody's hands, who was too busy laughing to give a damn, and walked off. Amy stared after Rory. This wasn't supposed to be happening; they were supposed to be together. But no matter how hard Amy tried to make herself believe that, she couldn't help but feel like the Doctor was a bigger part of book Amy's life.

_"Hey," Amy softly whispered to Bracewell. "Paisley."_

_He turned his head and looked at her. The whole room went silent, you could hear a pin drop. Everyone held their breath as they watched the girl in the weird clothing talk to the bomb._

_"Ever fancied someone you know you shouldn't?" She smiled._

_"What?" Bracewell asked. No one had been expecting this topic._

_"Hurts, doesn't it?"_

_Amy watched as the lights started to change back to the yellows and he started to defuse. She looked over at the Doctor; who looked like he was about to ask what she was doing. She smiled._

_"But kind of a good hurt." She said seriously and nodded._

_Bracewell looked like he was blushing as he imperceptibly nodded his head. "Well, I… I really shouldn't talk about her." He said secretly. As if she was a special jewel that he cherished._

_"Ooh, there was a her." Amy smiled, watching as the first light turned off._

_The Doctor looked at Amy, finally understanding what she was doing. His Amelia Pond._

_"What was her name?" He asked, reluctantly taking his eyes off of Amy._

…

Amy sat at the table by herself. Melody was in detention and Rory was off with Beth. She had said that he wasn't allowed to talk to Amy anymore. She had to admit, she missed him. But for some reason she missed the man in the book more. The mysterious Doctor.

She picked at the hem of her shirt. She had just finished the third chapter and there was something bothering her. The cracks, like the one on Amy's wall. Why were they everywhere they went? What did they mean? She had to talk to the old man.

…

Amy almost ran all the way to the bookstore. She walked up to the desk and looked at him straight in the eye. Amy couldn't crush the feeling of familiarity in his deep brown eyes which looked young and old at the same time.

"The crack, the one that was in Amy's wall, what is it?" She asked him.

"Ah, it's always a pleasure to see you, Amelia." He smiled. "Why don't you take a seat and I'll make you a cup of tea. I take it you have just finished the third chapter."

"Well, yeah." She said, sitting down and tucking her legs under her.

"Keep reading, Pond. This is where it starts to get better." Amy could have sworn that she heard something else in his voice.


	3. Chapter 3

Hey guys! I'm sorry I took so long, but HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope you all had a great Christmas and an awesome new year so far. I don't know how often I can update for the next couple of months as I am starting year 12 which is my final year of high school! (I'm slightly excited) I am also going on a trip with my family on the last week of January and I don't know if I'll have internet, but anyway I will try to update before then. But here's the new chapter and I'm going to stop talking now. Remember rate, review, subscribe. I will be doing this thing with this fic that every reviewer (no matter what you say) get a special sneak peek at the next chapter. Enjoy!

***Disclaimer* None, I repeat, ****_none, _****of these characters belong to me. It's just a little fun to get the stories out of my head. These characters belong to their rightful owners and whatnot. As I said, it's all fun. Enjoy!**

_"There is nothing sweeter in this sad world than the sound of someone you love calling your name." _

_― The Tale of Despereaux_

**3**

_"Amy," the Doctor took in a deep breath and let it go. "You need to start trusting me, it's never been more important."_

_Amy pouted slightly. "But you don't always tell me the truth."_

_The Doctor smiled. "If I always told you the truth I wouldn't need you to trust me."_

…

Amy pushed the peas around her plate with her fork.

"Amy don't play with your food." Her mother said, sighing.

Amy pinched a pea on her fork and put it in her mouth. She had never liked peas, her mother knew that.

"Rory has a girlfriend." Her father said after looking in between his wife and daughter.

"Oh, that's lovely, I thought…"

Amy's head shot up.

"You thought _what_, mother?" She snapped. "That Rory and I were going to get together? That he was in love with me and always has been? I hate to break it to you, but it's not a book and we don't get a storybook ending!"

She pushed her chair away from the table and stamped up to her room. Tabetha started to get up and go after Amy, but Augustus placed a hand on her arm.

"Let her go." He said quietly.

…

"Where's Rory?" Amy asked Melody.

She looked around and then spotted him with _Beth_.

"Oh," she sat down.

"Amy," Melody said, sitting up properly on the bench. "That book you were reading, the one about the man, is he hot?"

Amy looked over at Melody. "No, he's funny." What sort of question was that?

"Okay." The conversation stopped.

…

_"'Really' what? Hello?" Amy said, her heart rate starting to speed up. What had happened to them? "'Really' what?" She repeated, this time more insistent. "Hello?" _No_. "_Hello_?" Where did he go? "Hello?"_

_She sighed. Why did they leave her? Why didn't they listen? Where was the Doctor? She needed him._

_"Please say you're there." She didn't know who she was talking about now; the Doctor or the Soldier. "Hello?!"_

_She felt like she was about to cry and then:_

_"Amy." His voice sounded through the walkie-talkie. Her heart almost stopped._

…

"Rory! Rory wait up!" Amy shouted as she ran to catch up with her best friend.

He turned around and looked over his shoulder at her. There was a flash of something in his eye, but that could have been Amy's imagination running away with her; again.

"What do you want, Amy?" He asked, there was a slight bitterness to his voice, it took Amy aback slightly.

"Nothing, I… I wanted to know how you are and how… Beth is?" She said, looking down at her feet.

"Don't bother, Amy, you don't care." He started to walk away.

"Rory!" Amy said as she grabbed his sleeve. "Please, I do care, I've always cared, I just…"

"No, Amy. I've never seen you care so much for anyone or anything than that book." He pulled his arm away from her. "You've been changing since you started reading that book and you don't even notice anyone else anymore."

Amy stood there shocked. Rory had never spoken to her like that before. Her arm fell limp next to her. She didn't know if she wanted to cry or yell back at him. He didn't know, he had no idea what this book was; he could never understand, no one could.

"Is that what you feel, Rory? I'm sorry if you feel that way but it's not true." She said, her voice cold.

"That's what you think, Amy." He scoffed. "I have to go, Beth needs help with her French homework."

"Fine," Amy snapped. "Go help _Beth_."

They stared at each other for a few minutes before Rory shook his head and turned away from her. Amy watched helplessly as he walked away.

…

The old man sat in his alcove overlooking the bookstore.

"Not long now." He smiled as he gently stroked a peculiar blue box.

Yellow-orange light warmed his fingertips. He knew this girl would be the one.


End file.
